It hasn't happened yet — and we don't know for sure if it will — but I'm already feeling the hit. In early January I met with four new prospective clients across several consumer and B2B industries. Three agreed to sign on with me, but two have temporarily tabled their marketing plans 'til they see what's going to happen to the economy in March. And I know that one or both may go south on me if the worst happens.

Here in Dayton, with Wright Pat AFB next door, there's much nervousness a/b what the impact of the defense cuts will be — and that ripple is spreading out to a long list of local tech and mfg. companies that are either defense contractors or who's customers are.

As much as we hope it happens, a Conservative "Atlantis" in 2014 is no concession for those who will get thoroughly hosed in the coming months. Revenge next year will not mitigate the damage we'll see this year.

I hope it doesn't impact you Steve, but likely it'll hit us all in one form or another.

Thats why Krugman says now is NOT the time to cut !! I sincerely believe the GOP just wants things F-ed up so they can plead with the public "it's not working - give control back to us!" which is like giving a drunk driver the car to drive you home ! We'll end up in another bar ditch wrecked worse than the 1st time !!

The good news is I believe the voters/ public have caught on and the ploy won't work. IF we go to sequester (I'm betting 80-90% we will), the GOP gets the bulk of the blame for the exact reasons MacB said - no leadership on the GOP side- just a bunch of baby whining. In fact, we've had more crises created by or under GOP "leadership" (?) than any Dem ever dreamed of.

I don't know what the answer is of course, but let's not forget that the economy was headed in this direction anyway. Granted the GOP was spending like drunken sailors, but if not for all the taxes collected from the Internet bubble when Clinton was in office, this would've happened sooner.

In "sooner" days, we weren't plagued by a Congress this dysfunctional or a Repugnican party this obstructionist. The size of the Federal gov't — and the deficit — have all been reduced during Obama's first term. Yet the right still screams Cut Spending! and won't even vote on closing a few tax loopholes for the top 1%. Does that makes sense?

I don't agree, Jim. Yes, the bubble under Clinton inflated receipts and gave us predictions, if you remember, of endless budget surpluses for the foreseeable future. But then we had the wars and the tax cuts. The budget deficit in 2008 was .458 trillion. That's around the level where "deficits don't matter." Then the financial disaster struck and the economy went in the toilet and in 2009 the deficit was 1.4 trillion. Is it a surprise that so severe a recession led to such a large deficit? Without the recession, and without the two wars and without the deficit-increasing tax cuts, would we have had a deficit? Probably. Would it have been in the "deficits don't matter" range? Well, only if a Rep. had been in office, but you know what I mean.

The problem is the recession, and not just because recessions mean fewer bucks coming in in taxes, but also because recessions provoke bigger expenditures by governments. I know that not everyone is a Keynesian, so maybe those expenditures wouldn't happen under a Rep. administration. But then we'd be in a depression, not a recession. (That's my Keynesian self speaking ).

[tinhaton]The recession was a deliberate thing, concocted by a party that wants to make the government disappear as much as possible.[/tinhaton]

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